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Proteomic characteristics of the treatment trajectory of patients with COVID-19

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Abstract

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has prompted global concern due to its profound impact on public health and the economy. Effective treatment of COVID-19 patients in the acute phase or of those with long COVID is a major challenge. Using data-independent acquisition (DIA) technology, we performed proteomic profiling on plasma samples from 22 COVID-19 patients and six healthy controls at Dazhou Central Hospital. Random forest and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator algorithms were used for analysis at various COVID-19 treatment stages. We identified 79 proteins that were differentially expressed between COVID-19 patients and healthy controls, mainly involving pathways associated with cell processes and binding. Across different treatment stages of COVID-19, five proteins—PI16, GPLD1, IGFBP3, KRT19, and VCAM1—were identified as potential molecular markers for dynamic disease monitoring. Furthermore, the proteins BTD, APOM, IGKV2-28, VWF, C4BPA, and C7 were identified as candidate biomarkers for distinguishing between SARS-CoV-2 positivity and negativity. Analysis of protein change profiles between the follow-up and healthy control groups highlighted cardiovascular changes as a concern for patients recovering from COVID-19. Our study revealed the infection profiles of SARS-CoV-2 at the protein expression level comparing different phases of COVID-19. DIA mass spectrometry analysis of plasma samples from COVID-19 patients undergoing treatment identified key proteins involved in signaling pathways that might be used as markers of the recovery phase. These findings provide insight for the development of therapy options and suggest potential blood biomarkers for COVID-19.

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Data availability

Data from this study are available through the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We are thankful to all the doctors and nurses of the Infectious Diseases Department at Dazhou Central Hospital for the help they gave us and all the work they accomplished during the epidemic.

Funding

This work was supported by Dazhou Science and Technology Bureau, Dazhou, Sichuan, China (grant numbers ZDYF0001, 22ZDYF0020, 21ZDYF0021, and 21CDDZ-26).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Xue Li, Guilan Ding and Shilin Li contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Research Center, Dazhou Central Hospital, Dazhou, Sichuan, China

    Xue Li, Shilin Li & Fanxin Zeng

  2. Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Dazhou Central Hospital, Dazhou, 635000, Sichuan, China

    Guilan Ding, Chun Liu & Xiangde Zheng

  3. Department of General Practice, Dazhou Central Hospital, Dazhou, Sichuan, China

    Jinliang Luo

  4. Department of Laboratory Medicine, Dazhou Central Hospital, Dazhou, Sichuan, China

    Sichun He

  5. Department of Orthopedics, Sichuan Province Orthopedic Hospital, Chengdu, Sichuan, China

    Fanwei Zeng

  6. Medical Research Center, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China

    Xuan Huang

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  1. Xue Li
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Contributions

F.Z.X., F.Z.W., and X.H. conceived the idea and designed the study. X.L., X.H. G.D., and S.L. performed most of the experiments and analyzed and interpreted data. C.L., X.Z., J.L., and S.H. performed part of the experiments and data collection. G.D. and X.L. wrote the original draft and revised the manuscript. F.Z.X., F.Z.W., and X.H. revised the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Fanwei Zeng, Xuan Huang or Fanxin Zeng.

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Conflict of interest

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Ethical approval

This study was performed in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Dazhou Central Hospital Ethics Committee (Date: April 15, 2020/no. 000015).

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Handling Editor: Pablo Pineyro.

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Li, X., Ding, G., Li, S. et al. Proteomic characteristics of the treatment trajectory of patients with COVID-19. Arch Virol 169, 84 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-024-05991-y

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